


Midnighttypewriter's August Drabbles

by midnighttypewriter



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnighttypewriter/pseuds/midnighttypewriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In August, I challenged myself to write drabble a day on my Tumblr. Now I finally got around to uploading the drabbles to AO3. </p><p>31 unrelated Captain America-themed drabbles. Mostly Steve/Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Midnighttypewriter's August Drabbles

**Day One  
Prompted by [fromwastelands](http://fromwastelands.tumblr.com/): _Easy A AU_**

"I can’t believe you told Stark you slept with some random college guy," Bucky says. He’s sitting at the kitchen table with one leg up on it, his foot dangling off the edge (his parents aren’t home, otherwise he’d never dare) and he’s looking at Steve over the edge of a frozen yogurt cup. He points at Steve accusingly with his spoon.

Steve shrugs, but the truth is he can barely believe it himself - but the rest of the school thinks it’s true, going by the stares and whispers. He didn’t mean for the rumor to spread, just wanted to get Tony of his case. It was a miscalculation, letting Loki Odinson overhear. “You don’t think it’s true?” he asks despite that, a challenge in his tone.

"First, you’re a terrible liar and I was there when you tried to sell it to Stark," Bucky says. He emphasizes the first word with a little jab in the air with his spoon before licking the utensil obscenely. "Second, I dare to say I’d know. Really, I don’t think Loki believes it himself but that little skunk’s persuasive." He returns to his frozen yogurt, eating it in a way that involves way too much tongue out of his mouth: licking his spoon, running over his lips, poking at the corners of his mouth.

"It could be worse," Steve says in an attempt to persuade them both, though he has trouble imagining it. His eyes are wandering around the kitchen in order to not stare at his best friend.

"How?"

"I don’t know," Steve says and while he’s aiming for indifference, his voice just sounds uncertain. "I could have, I don’t know, said I slept with you."

Bucky pauses with his spoon half way to his mouth. “Yeah, that would have been… worse,” he says slowly with an odd expression on his face.

 

**Day Two  
Prompted by [i-am-captveited](http://i-am-captveited.tumblr.com/): _tattoos_**

Bucky’s first tattoo is a very obvious one. It’s under his right collarbone: a simple outline of dog tags with _James Buchanan Barnes_ written above in his own handwriting. He has _Winter Soldier_ added underneath a few months later, when he starts reclaiming that codename as well.

He hopes it would be an obvious clue if his memory ever needed it. He hopes he never needs to test the theory.

As time goes, he adds more ink to his skin. Little reminders of his life and world, though they get less straightforward and more artistic. Yet the one that helps him calm down, that he only needs to place his hand over to keep himself steady, is one of his earliest. On the left side of his chest in familiar handwriting: _Steve Rogers (“With you ‘til the end of the line.”)_

 

**Day Three  
Prompted by [fromwastelands ](http://fromwastelands.tumblr.com/): _punk!girl!Steve and nerd!(girl or boy - I went with girl)!Bucky; college_**

Bucky’s walking across the campus grounds when she notices the fight. Because there is Science Here and Now podcast playing straight into her ears, she sees it before she hears it. A tall guy is pulling a tiny girl’s hair, twisting her arm behind her back with the other hand. The girl is digging the nails of her free hand into the side of his face while trying to kick him with her bony knee.

Bucky pulls her earphones out while reaching her other hand for the, technically illegal but rather effective, pepper spray in the pocket of her jacket. “Hey, how about you pick on someone your size?” she ask, though she isn’t sure that’s the best idea she’s ever had.

It’s enough to startle the guy and pull him out of the rage zone. He lets go of the girl and she stumbles and falls to the concrete pavement. She’s glaring daggers. The guy has red lines running down his face. “Whatever,” he says and steps back. “She started it, anyway.”

He is leaving, Bucky notices, but she isn’t paying attention, because she is crouching down to the girl. “You alright?”

"I had him on the ropes," the girl says. With the exception of her jeans jacket with pins on the pockets, she is wearing all black, including the stretchers in her ears and the tattoo poking out of her t-shirt. Her hair is blond, shaven on one side and longer on the other. The one more splash of color are the red and blue stars tattooed under her revealed ear.

"Sure you did," Bucky says, smirking slightly. She stands up and offers her hand to the blonde. "I’m Bucky, by the way."

"Steph," the tiny girl says and smiles before letting Bucky pull her up. "Hey, you’re in my Queens of Crime Literature course, aren’t you? You sit in the front." Before Bucky can confirm or deny, Steph says: "He was right, you know. I started it. Sort of."

Without knowing why, Bucky finds herself saying: “How about you tell me over a cup of coffee?”

 

**Day Four  
Unprompted: _Bucky deals with assholes_**

Most people know to treat Bucky with respect. He has the dark and dangerous thing down to an art form without trying and everyone knows he is capable of some major destruction. But even among the people they regularly interact with, there’re a few assholes with more brawn than brain.

Usually, no one comments on Bucky’s hair though he keeps it long. He doesn’t like the idea of someone coming near him with something sharp so he keeps his hair in a style he can easily maintain himself by snipping off the ends every few weeks. He also likes the way it frames his face and gives him a different look from the one he can see in old pictures of himself. Also, the act of gathering his hair into a ponytail or a bun is calming and satisfying. And while he doesn’t like to admit it, he enjoys the idea of the shock his old man would have if he could see Bucky like this.

Normally, no one comments. But this guy, an ex-SHIELD employee of Stark Industries with a buzzcut and no neck eyes Bucky with a condescending smirk. “Are you going to get yourself a skirt, too?”

Bucky’s first instinct is to punch him but instead he glares and hears himself say: “Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll get myself a cute dress and a pretty pair of heels and make Steve here take me dancing.”

Steve, who has walked in just in time to inspire the ending of Bucky’s comment, only hears Bucky’s side of the exchange and blinks in surprise, but to his credit he only nods. “If that’s something that’d make you happy.”

 

**Day Five  
Prompted by [ itscrawlingundermyskin](http://itscrawlingundermyskin.tumblr.com/): _drunk Bucky talking to Natasha about his feelings for Steve_**

"His hair, Nat," Bucky says without any introduction as soon as Natasha picks up the phone. "It’s like… gold, only it’s a little different color, and the way it… Do you ever think ‘bout Steve’s hair, Natasha?"

"You’re drunk," Natasha groans, looking at her alarm clock to determine the time. 2am. She’s had exactly an hour of sleep.

"There were shots," Bucky answers. "But listen, his smile. I want to- What do smiles taste like?"

"James?" Natasha loves the man, but at 2AM, she has only so much patience. "Is this where you realize you’re a love-sick puppy and want to do the dirty with Steve?"

There’s a beat of silence. “Nah, already knew that,” he says finally and then tries to continue on with his rambling: “The way he looks when he’s all happy and relaxed and you just want to-“

"James," Natasha interrupts him again. "James, can you do something for me?"

"But-"

"Please?"

"What?"

"Go to bed," Natasha says with a sigh. "Sleep this off. Then make Steve breakfast and tell him you want to have his adopted babies."

"I don’t want babies."

"Then tell him you want to make sweet, sweet love to him."

"You think I should? Should I do that now?"

"No! Sleep first, confessions later. And James?"

"Nat?"

"You owe me."

**Day Six  
Prompted by [fromwastelands](http://fromwastelands.tumblr.com/): _rockstar!Bucky_**

"Thank you! You’re amazing!" Bucky shouted at the top of his lungs. His body was vibrating with the positive energy pouring from their audience, his clothes were soaked through with his own sweat and he couldn’t stop smiling.

”And the next song,” he continued, his voice quieter in order to get the audience to calm down so that he could talk. “The next song is for someone very special- Very special to all of us.” He looked around at his band and saw Natasha, Sam, and Sharon nod along. Natasha added a little drumroll. “But particularly to me.”

The band began playing while Bucky’s eyes left the audience for a moment to look to the side, to the backstage. With the lights all aimed on the stage, he could only barely make out the silhouette, but it was enough to know that Steve was standing there, watching and listening to everything.

’Love you,’ Bucky mouthed before turning his gaze back to the audience.

 

**Day Seven  
Unprompted: _war-time!Bucky, unrequited love_**

The men talk, as they always do, about the girls waiting for them back home – whether real or imaginary is anyone’s guess. Every one of them has a story to tell, even Steve now. Though he is quiet about it and only responds after many demands, pink in his cheeks and a bashful smile on his face. They can only assume how he and Peggy are doing.

And Bucky… He listens to them all, catcalls and whistles the same they do, and swallows the bitterness that fills up his throat. I had a fella back home, who was never really mine, and he didn’t wait for me, he wants to say. But he can’t say any of it and so when they prompt him, he tells them what they want to hear. He talks about the girls he took the dancing, but no, he doesn’t have a sweetheart. Why let himself be tied down when there’re all the dames waiting for Sergeant Barnes, it would be unfair.

He laughs and exaggerates and fistbumps the other Commandos…

…and the moment no one is looking, his face falls.

 

**Day Eight  
Unprompted: _Steve watches Wrath of Khan_**

"Oh man," Sam winces quietly when he realizes what movie Steve is watching. "Oh man."

Steve looks at him in confusion. “I was told it was good and it’s an important part of the pop culture? Even if the first movie was sort of…” he trails off and shrugs to suggest it wasn’t really that engaging.

There is the opening scene of the _Wrath of Khan_ playing out on their hotel room tv screen and Sam can hardly think of a worse choice of a movie, though he can imagine a worse time for Steve to have watched it. “I’m not saying it’s not good. Just- First of all, you really should have watched the tv show first. Second… Can you pause it for a moment? I think I need one more run to the store.”

They needed tissues. And ice cream.

 

**Day Nine  
Prompted by [whydouwantaname](http://whydouwantaname.tumblr.com/): _A Bucky/Steve/Peggy sequel to Day Seven drabble_**

"You can’t… You can’t make me choose," Steve is saying from where he is sitting on the edge of his bed, shaking his head frantically.

"You don’t have to," says Bucky, his throat tight. He didn’t meant to let anything slip, it simply escaped. After the latest of Steve’s stunts, he found himself confessing between thanking Heavens Steve was alive and relatively unharmed. "I expect nothing. Nothing, Steve. Just- You and Peggy, you’re perfect, I didn’t mean to- You weren’t supposed to know."

Steve continued to shake his head. “You can’t do this. You can’t just tell me… You can’t tell me I could have… That I could have had… That we could have been… And then tell me to what, forget it?” He doesn’t sound angry, just desperate. Hurt.

"Steve-"

"How am I supposed to choose?" Steve gets up to his feet. He curls his hand around the back of Bucky’s neck, his earnest eyes focused on Bucky. "It was… easier when the options were limited."

Trying to process Steve’s words, Bucky wraps his fingers around Steve’s wrist. He isn’t entirely sure what’s going on, unable to finish Steve’s half-sentences despite normally reading him like an open book.

"I can’t choose," Steve says. "But maybe… Maybe if you… If Peggy… Maybe?" And the last word sounds like a plea.

 

**Day Ten  
Unprompted: _mother_**

Bucky remembers Sarah Rogers better than he remembers his own mother, now that his memories are coming back out of order.

Sarah taught Steve to always get up when he fell to his knees. She taught Bucky how to clean bruises and bandage wounds. Both of them she tried to teach not to get in fights, but those lectures never stuck.

She taught Steve not to be ashamed of his hand me down clothes that never quite fit. Bucky’s clothes were new and fit well, but she taught him how to mend them so most of the times not even his own mother noticed he’d ripped holes in his elbows and knees.

Sarah taught Steve how to breathe through his asthma attacks. She taught Bucky how to dance that one time Steve was so sick he didn’t even notice Bucky’s presence, even though he was there every afternoon. 

"You should take girls dancing," she told him. He was almost sixteen then, a head taller than both Sarah and Steve already, but he felt like a little boy under her gaze. "They’ll be looking for you in the dance halls. Steve won’t mind."

He didn’t know then what she was trying to get at back then, that she was trying to teach him to protect himself, and Steve, from the consequences of feelings it would yet take them decades to figure out.

In the 21st century, he sometimes hears vicious jokes about mothers-in-law. He can’t say he understands the sentiment.

 

**Day Eleven  
Prompted by [ whydouwantaname ](http://whydouwantaname.tumblr.com/): _Steve is fascinated with Sebastian Stan, Bucky’s jealous_**

"He’s perfect," Steve says and Bucky tenses. He’s sitting in the opposite corner of their couch, his toes brushing Steve’s thigh. Steve’s holding his tablet in one hand, brushing his index finger against the touchscreen in a motion that indicates he’s scrolling through an article or rows of pictures.

"Who is?" Bucky ask, trying to force away the uncomfortable feeling in his chest. Steve has little hearts in his eyes that should be reserved for Bucky.

"The guy they picked to play you," Steve says and turns the tablet so that Bucky can see the face on the screen. When the movie studio who bought the rights to Steve’s story while he was still under the ice announced an upcoming Captain America movie, Steve was uncomfortable with both the idea of it and the idea of trying to stop it. Bucky found it funny then (“C’mon, can’t be worse than the comics!”) while Steve chose to ignore it for as long as he could.

Now Bucky wonders if perhaps they should have prevented it. “He looks nothing like me,” he says with a frown and it’s a lie. The man on the screen is stupidly handsome, but his features are similar enough. He’s maybe a little prettier, a little more Hollywood than Bucky considers himself to be, but they could be cousins if perhaps not brothers. 

And Steve keeps staring at the pictures of him with a stupid smile on his face. Bucky wonders where he could find his riffle.

"His name’s Sebastian," Steve continues, oblivious to the green eyed monster biting its way out of Bucky’s chest. "His smile’s just like yours."

"Yeah? Maybe you should ask to meet him, then," Bucky says, crossing his arms, and his bitterness bleeds into his tone. He bets this Sebastian doesn’t have his collection of traumas, doesn’t get torture flashbacks, doesn’t wake up his bedpartners with his nightmares. "I’m sure he’d like to hear how perfect you think he is."

"Oh Buck," Steve sighs. He puts his tablet away and reaches out for Bucky’s hand. "You know I only care because I want someone good to play you. So everyone can see a hint of what I see in you."

 

**Day Twelve  
Prompted by [ hailtoourrev ](http://%20hailtoourrev.tumblr.com/): _Halloween, Bucky’s scared about the strange little ghost-boy at the door._**

"I wasn’t scared," Bucky says, glaring at the wall while Steve rubs his shoulders.

"I’m not saying you were." Steve’s voice is gentle and his hands are warm and soft. Outside, it’s Halloween and it’s only a matter of time before another bunch of kids rings the bell and interrupts their moment. There’re still two full bowls of candy Steve can offer the visitors.

"You’re acting like you think I was," Bucky says with an awkward shrug. "It’s just… Scrawny ghosts kids. Scrawny kids and death and- It’s just… not okay, you know?"

 

**Day Thirteen  
Prompted by [ whydouwantaname ](http://%20whydouwantaname.tumblr.com/): _love confessions_**

Steve patiently explains that they were close, best friends and partners in (metaphorical) crime, but never lovers. He is confused by having to explain it and the expression on Bucky’s face as he processes it doesn’t help. Bucky looks lost.

"But…" he is shaking his head and for the first time in months, he looks like the things he is hearing don’t add up. 

It makes Steve’s chest ache.

"I remember I loved you," Bucky says.

Breath catches in Steve’s chest, his heart skips a beat. He had wanted to hear those words back then, for years, and it always made him feel guilty and like a traitor. “You did. Like a brother.” It hurts to say, because he wishes he could say something different.

Bucky glares at him. “No. I was in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since I first met you.”

"We were eleven," Steve mutters, because it’s the only reply his brain is able to provide. What Bucky is saying doesn’t make sense compared to anything Steve remembers. He was the one in love, Bucky was- He cared, but like a friend, like a brother.

"I was twelve," Bucky corrects. "And you were…" He reaches out his hand and cups Steve’s cheek, his thumb brushing against Steve’s bottom lip. Steve’s heartbeat speeds up. "You had a busted lip and bruised knees. And you looked like Mrs. Morris’ tomcat, you know, the one who-"

"Missed one ear and picked fights with dogs."

"Yes, exactly. And you were- Fuck, you were beautiful. The day after Susie Foley said she’d marry me and I almost said I couldn’t because I was going to marry you, but I was old enough to know-" He trails off and drops his hand to his lap.

Steve reaches for it. “Do you still?”

"What, think you look like an angry tomcat?"

"Love me?" Steve isn’t sure what he’ll do if Bucky’s answer is negative. He squeezes Bucky’s hand and holds his breath.

"Yeah. Always."

 

**Day Fourteen  
Unprompted: _I just wanted to get the “biographers suspecting something” trope out of my head._**

After he is thawed, Steve comes across many biographies of himself and people he once knew (a few months ago for him, decades for the world). He reads about the lives of those who survived him and yet are already dead. He writes cautious letters to their relatives, uncertain what response he might get from them. The one person whose biographies he avoids is Bucky.

Not for the lack of material available. There’re articles and books, a documentary. Even a life action movie at the center of which is Bucky, not Steve. Steve can’t find the courage to reach for any of it; the wound is still too fresh.

Then Bucky returns, sort of, and while Steve follows him all around the world in hopes of bringing him home, he finally reads one. Its content is unexpected.

 _"We all knew,"_ the book claims to quote an anonymous source close to Sergeant Barnes. _"Barnes was our boy. We had his back because he always had ours and out there in the field that counted, and he kept his hands to himself around us. Carried a torch for the captain, but I don’t think Steve knew. Tactical genius that he was, he could be really oblivious."_

It turns out, out of all the books available, he has picked one of the most controversial, though a brief research tells him it’s not a unique theory. The academics who built portions of their careers around Bucky’s life are divided roughly equally when it comes to the question of Bucky’s orientation. 

Steve remembers Bucky charming women and recalls the wild stories Bucky used to tell him about girls. Yet he realizes that, thinking about it now, he can’t swear the rest isn’t true as well. Not the part about Bucky carrying a torch for him, maybe, but the rest of it.

He decides to not think about it. It’s not important at the moment.

Then Bucky is back at his side and there is so much else to focus on.

Up until the day when he finds the biography in question on the coffee table with a post-it note stuck to its cover. 

"This one’s close to accurate."

 

**Day Fifteen  
Unprompted: _the thing about lines_**

"You know what the thing about lines is, Stevie?"

Bucky asks that out of nowhere, but Steve is used to him by now. Bucky’s mind wanders, and sometimes it’s miles ahead of his mouth and the rest of the world. So while Bucky’s lying on his back on Steve’s bed, arms folded under his head, his thoughts might very well be in the math class.

"I don’t know, Buck, what’s the thing about lines?"

"They don’t have an end, ‘s the thing about them."

—

_"I’m with you ‘till the end of the line."_

 

**Day Sixteen  
Prompted by [ whydouwantaname](http://%20whydouwantaname.tumblr.com/): _waterbed sounds like a good idea until it’s not_**

After fifteen minutes of waiting, Steve knocks on the bathroom door. “Are you alright? Bucky?” 

There’s a groan from behind the door and after a beat a weak: “Go away.”

"C’mon, let me in," Steve says, trying to sound gentle.

"Just let me deal with my humiliation, okay?" 

It was Bucky’s idea, to get a waterbed. He was fascinated with it and had many suggestions about its possible uses. Only once they actually tried it out, well, as it turned out, Bucky’s stomach didn’t particularly appreciate it.

"C’mon, Buck. I’m not laughing. It happens… Listen, how about we sell the bed? Get a new one. We can sleep on the couch for a few nights, right?" 

Bucky doesn’t open the door yet, but his voice comes from a smaller distance when he speaks: “How about we blow it up or something?”

 

**Day Seventeen  
Prompted by [ itscrawlingundermyskin](http://itscrawlingundermyskin.tumblr.com/): _something about falling asleep while watching a horror movie_**

Bucky yawns. “I’ve seen scarier things in the bathroom mirror in the mornings,” he mutters. He is snuggled against Steve’s side, reveling in the feeling of Steve’s fingers combing through his hair. 

"Hm, yeah." The truth is, they had both seen their fair share of disturbing, terrifying, and awful in their life, and perhaps watching horror movies should be a bad idea, but somehow the fantasy violence and cartoonish monsters can be a surprisingly good stress relief. That’s how they end up watching The Ring and snuggling on the couch. 

Halfway through, Bucky decides it’s boring enough to fall asleep to and closes his eyes, face half-buried in Steve chest.

When he wakes up again, it’s to the sound of the phone ringing. The tv screen is blank, but the black of it is matted and vibrating because it’s still on, just the movie is over. Steve is asleep with his arms wrapped around Bucky.

"Steve? Steve, I’m not picking it up."

 

**Day Eighteeen  
Unprompted: _some things change_**

Some things change. Bucky’s hair is longer than it has ever been before. Some things stay the same. He is as vain about it as ever, spending long time in the bathroom getting it to fall just right.

Some things are still the same. Bucky lays on the floor on his stomach, his shirt having ridden up to reveal a strip of his skin and feet kicking in the air, while Steve sits on the sofa and draws. Other things are different. He is playing Angry Birds on his Stark-issued tablet rather than solving crosswords. The focused expression is very familiar, though. 

A lot is different. The century, their address, their financial situation, their bodies. Even their souls. 

But the feeling in Steve’s chest whenever he looks at Bucky and catches him looking back, that hasn’t changed at all.

 

**Day Nineteen  
Prompted by [ fromwastelands](http://fromwastelands.tumblr.com/): _a photographer trying to get post-Winter Soldier Bucky to do a Sebastian Stan style photoshoot_**

"You want me to _what_?”

There’s an awkward silence. The photographer shivers a little. When a man with a metal arm and over two dozen confirmed kills looks at you like you personally offended him, being afraid is the reasonable thing to do.

"You want me to get in the bathtub. Fully dressed."

The photographer waves his hands in a vague gesture. “Yeah. We’ll just- Yeah.”

"And then… pour vodka over my head?" Everything in the Winter Soldier’s face says he is not on board with the idea.

"It doesn’t have to be vodka? We can use water in a vodka bott-"

"Yeah, we’re not doing that."

"I just thought-"

The Solider interrupts with a sigh. “Please, stop doing that. It leads nowhere good.”

"But-" The photographer tries to defend his ideas weakly and if nothing else, he is a brave man; that much is hard to deny.

"I’m afraid the magazine will need to look into the archive for pictures to accompany the interview. Because this isn’t happening."

 

**Day Twenty  
** Unprompted: _female Winter Soldier_  
Warning for forced hair cutting 

They cut her hair.

It’s one of the first things she remembers when she things start coming back. The snipping sound by her ears, the dark locks falling to the tiled floor, the clinical touch to the back of her head and her forehead.

They cut her hair and she, confused and pliant, let them.

They cut her hair. In the time when red lipstick was the staple of war effort, it had been difficult to be a woman soldier in the field where there was no time to look pretty. She had never been particularly feminine, never really wanted to be, but she had kept her hair as long as she got away with. Being Captain America’s right hand, she got away with a lot.

Snip.

They took her memories away.

Snip. Snip.

They took away her name and her choices.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

They took away everything, until her reflection in the mirror brought no spark of recognition.

 

**Day Twenty One  
Unprompted: _just a little thing on Steve after the thaw_**

Some days it feels like a dream. If he closes his eyes and wishes hard enough, maybe he’ll wake up again in the Brooklyn in the 40s and will live his life. This is surreal. Temporary. The world around him seems to be desperately trying to carve a space for the Captain America, but it has no Steve-shaped hole he could fill. 

Even most of the oldest people he knows were born after his time.

Others have lived for decades he himself is only now learning about in history books.

He comes from a different world.

As Captain America, he can still give commands and lead people into a battle.

As Steve Rogers, he is lost in the world with no one to connect to.

And then-

"It’s your bed, right?"

 

**Day Twenty Two  
Prompted by [ fromwastelands](http://fromwastelands.tumblr.com/): _Steve does the Ice Bucket Challenge_**

"I can do it," Steve says with more conviction than he has the right to. "It’s for a good cause."

"You don’t have to," Sam reassures him. "Everyone will understand."

Only, the video in which Tony publicly challenged him is already out, all over the internet. Because of course Tony done it life, completely forgot about any hangups Steve might have about ice, and only realized about thirty seconds afterwards. He called Steve, didn’t apologize, exactly, but offered to take it down and erase its traces. Steve refused.

"Look, ice and good causes? You could say that’s my thing," he tells Sam and there’s that stubborn look in his eyes. He won’t back out now.

A few hours later, when Steve is still shivering and letting Sam rub his back while he drinks hot cocoa, almost every important social media website has some sort of bandwidth issue, all because of Steve’s wet white t-shirt clinging to his skin. The donations go through the roof.

 

**Day Twenty Three  
Prompted by [ itscrawlingundermyskin](http://%20itscrawlingundermyskin.tumblr.com/): _a photographer trying to get post-Winter Soldier Bucky to do a Sebastian Stan style photoshoot_**

Steve is seven, Bucky is eight. The drawing Steve gives Bucky, along with an awkward smile, is not perfect at all. It depicts the fight they got into the day before, the first time they met, but it looks more like 4 potato-shaped frowning figures hanging in the air above a patch of grass. He doesn’t draw hands because he doesn’t know how, and he only has a red crayon. But Bucky smiles wide and bright, and he pronounces Steve his best friend.

Steve is ten, Bucky is eleven. It’s not really a gift, but when Bucky comes sit with him when the neighborhood boys ball game breaks up for some rest time, Steve offers him the rest of his soda. Bucky tries to refuse but then drinks it thirstily as he throws his arm around Steve’s shoulders and pulls him close to his side. His shirt is damp with sweat but Steve doesn’t complain.

They’re thirteen and fourteen, and Steve fixes Bucky’s collar and Bucky helps him with his tie and Bucky’s fingers brush Steve’s neck and then jaw, and his pupils are dilated and his lips parted just slightly. And then his eyes flutter closed and Steve leans in on instinct and presses his lips to Bucky’s. Bucky opens his eyes immediately and Steve jumps away fast. It’s the first kiss for both of them and it’s barely a kiss at all, but there’s just something about it. Bucky pulls Steve into a hug before the latter can start apologizing and then stand like that for a moment in silent understanding and then don’t speak about if for years.

Steve is seventeen when he redraws that picture he had once given Bucky and gives it to him again, as a present for his nineteenth birthday. He has apologies ready to go with it, explanations about how he simply didn’t have enough money and will buy Bucky a proper present when he does. But Bucky’s smile is genuinely happy and he later tapes it to his wall.

They’re in their twenties somewhere in the Europe and the days are starting to turn one like the other. Long times of waiting and hoping the bombs won’t land too close and short moments of excitement consisting of the fight for freedom and their lives. Steve gives Bucky the cigarettes that come with his rations, swaps them for the candy Bucky doesn’t like anyway. He draws on the back of Bucky’s hands during the calm moments. Tells him jokes when they can’t sleep. Sometimes, a smile is the only gift he can offer.

They’re still in their twenties, but they’re over ninety at the same time. Steve gives the Winter Soldier a fraction of memory.

Age doesn’t seem to matter anymore, they’re both very young and too old. They give each other home.

**Day Twenty Four  
Prompted by [ itscrawlingundermyskin](http://%20itscrawlingundermyskin.tumblr.com/): _Natasha and Sam can’t stand their friends pining over each other_**

"What’s this about?" Bucky ask, barely repressing a sigh, when Sam and Natasha sit down to him, one on each side, and he feels a little crowded.

"It’s intervention time!" Sam’s bright and cheerful and Bucky remains unimpressed.

"I don’t need one? I’ve been doing well. I eat, I sleep five hours on average which is three hours more than ori-"

Natasha interrupts him by placing her arm around his shoulder and pecking his cheek. “Yes, we know. That’s not what we’re worried about.”

He frowns. “What then?” He looks between the two of them suspiciously.

"Look, you and Steve-"

"If you’re going to say we’re codependent-"

"No! No, that’s not it," Sam assures him. "You’re doing fine. There’s healthy distance to your friendship."

"Maybe too much of one," Natasha adds.

"Which is what we’re worried about," Sam adds.

"Annoyed by."

"Tired of."

Bucky is looking from one to the other, feeling like he’s watching tenis. ”What the hell?”

"It’s time you two faced your feelings for each other," Natasha finally explains and Sam nods eagerly.

"It’s about eighty years overdue and I don’t think I have enough shelving space to keep all those sketchbooks Steve keeps filling up with your face."

Bucky lets his body drop forward and his forehead his the table he’s sitting at. This can’t be happening to him.

 

**Day Twenty Five  
Prompted by [ insertfandomname](http://%20insertfandomname.tumblr.com/): _The Howling Commandos after Bucky and Steve’s death_**

The world is celebrating Victory in Europe and they celebrate with it, because this is what they’ve been fighting for. But it’s a quiet celebration, a painful one. The two people missing at the table are far from the only friends they’ve lost in the war, but their absence is somehow the most painful. It’s an ache located outside there bodies, like a lost limb, with no immediate relief for it.

Dum Dum orders the usual number of shots and only when he is left staring at the two unclaimed ones on the tray he realizes what he’s done. He places the shots by the empty chairs.

"To Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes," they toast. "To Steve. To Bucky."

They dry their eyes discreetly.

"You know what Barnes’d tell us if he was here right now?" Gabe asks.

"That we’re wasting perfectly good alcohol," Morita answers and everyone hmms in agreement.

Yet none of them touches those drinks.

 

**Day Twenty Six  
** Unprompted: _the Winter Soldier never remembers_  
Warning for implied character death 

The alien troops form a tightening circle around them. Steve grips his shield, looking for a weakness in their ranks. Bucky’s, no, the Winter Soldier’s presses against his. Steve can hear the clicks of his various weapons.

"Captain Rogers?"

"Yes?"

"I wanted to say it’s been an honor," the Soldier speaks in Bucky’s voice but sounds nothing like him. "I only wish I had had the chance to get to know you better."

 

 **Day Twenty Seven  
** Unprompted: _just a little thing about Bucky post-CATWS_  
His name is James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant. He’s from Brooklyn. He fought in the World War II.  
He knows this because the Smithsonian told him.

He is an asset. He is the death of many. He is a soldier, a weapon, a tool.  
He knows this because it’s the one thing he remembers.

He is the one thing that always stands between the mission target blue-eyed man and harm.  
He knows this because every cell of his body tells him so.

 

**Day Twenty Eight  
Unprompted: _just the "yeah, I know gay people exist" trope_**

It annoys Bucky to no end, the way the others look at them like they’re innocent and inexperienced. Or perhaps too modest. Or maybe too old-fashioned. He needn’t have lived for the past seventy years - because the last seventy years of his life were hardly a life at all - to know that things were different in his time. Different, but that doesn’t mean innocent or uptight.

They were men at age when people these days are still stuck in that awkward time between childhood and the real world. They received better sex education, too. And they were in army, they can string together creative vulgarisms. So the way people looked them, as if they were Victorian ladies about to faint, any time sex is mentioned… it annoys him to no end.

Don’t even get him started on how everyone seems to be expecting with held breath a homophobic rant.

The worst is watching television surrounded by the Avengers. Like now, with the tv show that avoids admitting its characters really want each other badly.

Tired of the sideway glances he receives after every innuendo, he gets up to his feet with a groan. “Call me when they start boning. The unresolved tension grates on my nerves.”

There are gasps and gaping. And snickering, from Steve, along with a blush.

"What? We had homosexuality in the 30s," Bucky says with a shrug. "We had gay people. I knew gay people."

There’s a question in the silence that follows.

"Some of the men I fucked might have been."

 

**Day Twenty Nine  
Unprompted: _Steve is Bucky's knight_**

Steve likes to play soldiers but Bucky prefers knights. He puts a pot on Steve’s head, “a helmet, so you look proper heroic” and at first he himself plays a dragon, but they need a princess to be saved and none of Bucky’s little sisters will play with them. He slips into the role naturally. 

Outside, he finishes Steve’s fights for him. In the castle that is Barnes’ kitchen table, Steve is his knight in shining armor.

They turn fifteen, men, and they’re too old for such games but Bucky still ropes him in sometimes, thanks him in high falseto for rescuing him until Steve laughs.

He’s in need of rescuing, only he’s a soldier and the castle is an enemy base. There is no dragon, but there’s Hydra, and he tries to imagine Steve will storm in and save him, like he always does, but the reality is too harsh and there’s no escape from it. But Steve comes and he’s real, because he is built like a house and Bucky has never needed him to be this big.

He goes right back to finishing Steve’s fights.

Steve will come. Steve will rescue him. Steve does that. He doesn’t remember much but he remembers that Steve always saves him. Steve slays the dragon. The Hydra.

He is Hydra.

 

**Day Thirty  
Unprompted: _The feeling is not new._**

 

Steve doesn’t know how it happened. One moment he was combing his fingers through Bucky’s hair, fighting with the stubborn knots. The next Bucky held his hand, bringing Steve’s knuckles to his lips. His eyes were on Steve’s the whole time, something intense in his gaze. 

He dropped their joined hands down and closed the gap between them. His nose nudged Steve’s. Their lips touched, just lightly, just a barely-there kiss. 

"This is new," Steve said quietly. He was afraid to speak any louder, concerned the moment may be ruined by the sound of his voice.

"The feeling’s not," Bucky whispered, dropping his head to Steve’s shoulder, nuzzling his face into the crook of Steve’s neck. "Not for me."

 

**Day Thirty  
Unprompted: _Sam/Steve/Bucky_**

Natasha looks over Steve’s shoulder at Sam and Bucky engaged in some friendly arguing. Then she looks at Steve, an eyebrow arched. “So which one are you dating?” she asks.

Steve turns pink and stutters: “…neither?”

"And do they know that?"

Because she is Natasha and she knows circumstances change and answers once given don’t have to be true in only a few days, she repeats the same question a few months later.

Steve turns a deep shade of red but answers with confidence in his voice: “Both. With their knowledge and approval.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to come hang out with me on Tumblr, I'm [midnighttypewriter](http://midnighttypewriter.tumblr.com/) over there as well.


End file.
